New owner of Neudeck Building plans $6M renovation: Housing, retail, gym in works

Wayne County has officially sold the 86,000-square-foot Philip J. Neudeck office building at 415 Clifford St., and its downtown parking lot, to businessman Joe Barbat.

The sale of the building at Clifford and Bagley for $2.3 million was approved by the Wayne County Commission in a 14-0 vote Thursday, with Commissioner Burton Leland absent from the meeting.

The appraised value was $2.1 million, according to a commission memo.

Crain’s reported in June that Barbat, the CEO and chairman of Southfield-based Wireless Toyz and chairman of West Bloomfield Township-based real estate investment and management company firm Barbat Holdings LLC, had the building under contract. Barbat said in an email to Crain’s Friday that a $6 million renovation is planned to convert the building into about 100 apartments or condominiums. Hantz Bank is the primary financer behind the project, Barbat said. The first floor of the building, which will be renamed The Philip House, is expected to be retail space.

He said negotiations are ongoing “with a very well-known and established gym that will bring a new focus of health and wellness to the city.”

The building was constructed in 1918.

“This is a wonderful use for an old building that the county no longer uses,” Commissioner Kevin McNamara, D-Van Buren Township, said in a statement. “It is yet another great example of developers investing in downtown Detroit, and it is an opportunity for this building to be placed on the tax rolls.”

Barbat also bought the Park Apartments on West Adams Street between Park Avenue and Clifford in February for $3.25 million.
Barbat’s Bagley Clifford LLC beat out a $2.25 million offer from Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock Real Estate Services LLC, according to county documents.

The building housed the Wayne County departments of public services and technology until 2010, when they moved to the International Center Building at 400 Monroe St. and the Guardian Building at 500 Griswold St., respectively.

The Neudeck Building – named after Philip J. Neudeck, a former Wayne County Road Commission chairman – had also housed the road commission until voters approved its dissolution in 1984 and its duties were incorporated into the public services department, according to a news release.

Originally, the building was home to the Detroit City Gas Co., later Michigan Consolidated Gas Co.

The county bought the building in 1972, according to the release.
The commission’s Public Services Committee unanimously voted Dec. 10 to send the building sale recommendation to the full commission.